Unbroken-movie reviewDecember 29, 2014

Movie ReviewDecember 28, 2014 Unbroken by Mark Roget,Unbroken is inspirational, but at the same time, it’s not for the faint of heart. About a great American, Olympic athlete Louis Zamperini, the film is an uplifting tribute to the power of individual determination and endurance. Yet it’s a tough slog because it’s filled with almost two hours of unrelenting suffering and torture. Adapted from Laura Hillenbrand’s book by a slew of impressive writers, Joel and Ethan Coen, Richard LaGravenese, and William Nicholson, Unbroken chronicles the story of Zamperini’s incredible life via childhood flashbacks and during his incarceration as a Japanese prisoner-of-war. Directed by Angelina Jolie, a large part of the movie’s focus is on the Japanese camp where a sadistic commander, Watanabe (Japanese songwriter/singer Miyavi in his first movie role) selectively beats up Zamperini, letting up only to allow him to recover so he can beat him up again and again and again. It’s not only difficult to watch such brutality but the cruelty soon becomes redundant and predictable. And the scenes of sadistic punishment are agonizing to watch—which include the one in which all the American prisoners are forced to punch Zamperini in the face; the one in which Zamperini is forced to hold up a mammoth beam or be shot; and the one in which Watanabe slams a pole across Zamperini’s face (which is repeated so many times I lost count).

When the film begins, we see Zamperini (a terrific portrayal by Jack O’Connell) as an Army Air Corps bombardier on a 1943 mission during World War II. His plane is over the South Pacific when the engines die and the aircraft crash lands into the water. He and two fellow soldiers, Phil (Domhnall Gleeson) and Mac (Finn Wittrock), are stuck on a life raft for 47 days until the Japanese pick them up. We see flashbacks to Zamperini’s life throughout his ordeal as a castaway and in the Japanese prison camp--flashbacks in which we get an understanding as to what fuels Zamperini’s ability to endure and survive his horrendous experience (he recalls his brother telling him: “If you can take it, you can make it” and “A moment of pain is worth a lifetime of glory”). The flashbacks show Zamperini as a youngster who is bullied by other boys for being an Italian immigrant, and who is constantly in trouble with the law for theft and underage drinking. When Louis is in his teens, his brother Peter sees his potential and persuades him to train to become a runner on the school team. Later, in another flashback, we see Zamperini at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany, where he sets a speed record in the 5000 meter race. There are many reasons to appreciate this film—one of which is to get an understanding as to what our soldiers did to save the Western world from Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito. One big stumbling block to the film, though, is that it feels incomplete. Indeed, what’s missing from Unbroken is as important as what is in it. After his ordeal, Zamperini returns home to kiss American soil and his family. The rest of his life, after the war, is narrated in quick snapshots delivered just before the movie credits roll. We learn that he married, that the U.S. pardoned war criminal Mutsuhiro Watanabe, and that Zamperini also forgave him (which has been hailed as redemptive, but which, I find unjust; forgive someone who insults you or gossips about you, but how unjust is it to forgive those who commit heinous crimes? Should we have forgiven Hitler?). Zamperini went to Japan to meet with his WWII captors, but Watanabe refused to meet with him. Zamperini died last July at 97 years old. What missing from the film is that after the war, Zamperini was a serious alcoholic for five years, suffered post-traumatic stress disorder, and treated his wife poorly. Zamperini has said that he converted to Christianity when he met Billy Graham. That transformation, which Zamperini believed to be most important, and which is in Hillenbrand’s book, has been left out of Jolie’s Unbroken.